FYF Fest has announced this weekend that they will be canceling their annual summer festival this year due to poor ticket sales. The festival was founded in 2004 by Sean Carlson and since then, FYF Fest has been one of the most popular music events in Los Angeles. The festival is run by the same company that puts on Coachella each year. This year, however, the festival’s hype evidently did not reach it’s potential.
FYF Fest was scheduled to take place this summer from July 21st to the 22nd. With an middling lineup featuring headlining artists including, Florence + The Machine, Future and Janet Jackson, many predicted that the festival would encouter some bumps. But as many of you may know, the festival market is extremely competitive and with so many festivals occurring all summer long, it seems FYF simply couldn’t keep up.
The festival owners, Goldenvoice and AEG Live, first invested in Carlson’s festival in 2011. But after sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior by Carlson was made public last year, Goldenvoice decided to buy out Carlson’s share and have Jenn Yacoubian take over. This year’s festival lineup was actually met by high praise for booking more female artists than most festivals but, but that doesn’t mean anything about actual music quality. After a very poor outcome of ticket sales in the month of April, Goldenvoice had no other option but to pull the plug on FYF this year.
Soon after the announcement of FYF Fest’s cancelation, Festival Owl chimed in their thoughts on the situation. The festival news platform shared a quote from Billboard’s article stating, “the crash of a well-known music festival in a major city operated by one of the biggest festival producers in the world is raising alarm bells about the health of the market in 2018.” Festival Owl also predicts that Panorama Music Festival, another Goldenvoice festival, could potentially be the next to get the ax.
FYF Fest will begin reaching out to fans either today or early this week with information regarding refunds for their purchases. Could this be the beginning of a rapid decline of music festivals?
I talk about this often but the graveyard will continue to grow. Panorama (another Goldenvoice festival) is likely next on the chopping block.
— Festive Owl (@TheFestiveOwl) May 6, 2018